I don’t feel much like pontificating today, this day being related to two major WWII battles of significance.

Consider for a moment the men who went towards the sounds of the guns over the Pacific in 1942, and across and over the beaches of Normandy in 1944.Â Did they calculate the risk, take a poll, or “test the water?”Â Nope, it was the throttle to the firewall into the wind and past the bow into history, as well as out the door, or down the ramp.Â Orders.Â Following orders of the President of the United States and the officers appointed above them.

Some still are here to maybe tell the tale.Â Many are not.Â Some left 65 years ago, a legacy of courage, others 63 years ago.Â No offspring, no telling stories around the fireplace in response to “What did you do in the war, Grandpa?”Â Just silence, echoing into the future of things not done, of families not raised, but the sound of freedom is the outcome of their deaths.

1 response about “Ropeyarn Sunday “Sea Stories” and Open Trackbacks”

4,000 vessels, 110,000 vehicles and nearly three quarters of a million men to be thrown against the Atlantic Wall and Festung Europa and in the Pacific, 535 ships and 127,000 soldiers and Marines bore down on Guam, Saipan and Tinian – presaging the Battle of the Philippine Sea. Opposite ends of the world and yet look at the size of forces simultaneously mustered and sent to battle. *That* was awesome…
– SJS